Raspal, Antoine - The Couturiers workshop - 1760

Jacques Réattu - Liberty Traveling the World

Musée Réattu (Reattu Museum) is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily con ...

Arles Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...

, housing paintings, including works by Arles-born painter

Jacques Réattu Jacques Réattu (3 August 1760, Arles – 7 April 1833, Arles) was a French painter and winner of the grand prix de Rome. He was an illegitimate son of the painter Guillaume de Barrême de Châteaufort and Catherine Raspal, sister of the Arles-bo ...

, drawings by Picasso, as well as sculptures and a large collection of photographs.Michelin Travel
Musée Réattu
It regularly holds exhibitions of contemporary art. Arles Tourism Office

History

Building

The museum is housed in the former Grand Priory of the

Order of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta ( it, Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme, di Rodi e di Malta; ...

(''Grand Prieuré de l'Ordre de Malte''), built in the late 15th century. Initially built as the seat of a

commandry In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived.Anthony Luttrell and G ...

, it started housing Grand Priors in 1562, and became a Grand Priory in 1615, having jurisdiction over forty-eight commandries. In September 1792, a decree by the newly formed

National Convention The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year Nationa ...

ordered the confiscation and the sale of all the possessions of the Order of Malta in France, and the Grand Priory was sold in parts in 1793. The building then was acquired in 27 parts between 1796 and 1827 by Jacques Réattu, who lived and worked there. Upon his death in 1833, Réattu's daughter Élisabeth Grange inherited the building and her father's collections. She sold both to the Municipality of Arles in 1867, in exchange of a pension, while retaining the right to live there. MUSEOFILE, French museums directory
Musée Réattu
/ref> Over time, in addition to the museum, the building has housed a

mount of piety A mount of piety is an institutional pawnbroker run as a charity in Europe from Renaissance times until today. Similar institutions were established in the colonies of Catholic countries; the Mexican Nacional Monte de Piedad is still in operatio ...

, a tobacco warehouse and a drawing school. The entire building has undergone a renovation from 1956 to 1964. It has been listed as a '' monument historique'' since 1958. In 1991, the architect

Jean-Michel Wilmotte Jean-Michel Wilmotte (born 1948 in Soissons) is a French architect. Biography Jean-Michel Wilmotte studied interior design at the Camondo school of interior design in Paris. Just two years after graduating, he founded his own agency in Paris in ...

led the redesign of the rooms dedicated to Picasso.

Museum

The Museum was officially created in 1868, initially featuring the collections and the works of Jacques Réattu. On February 24, 1888,

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

who had moved to Arles three days earlier wrote about the museum in a letter to his brother

Theo Theo is a given name and a hypocorism. Greek origin Many names beginning with the root "Theo-" derive from the Ancient Greek word ''theos'' (''θεός''), which means god, for example: *Feminine names: Thea, Theodora, Theodosia, Theophania, ...

(original in French): "The women really are beautiful here, it's no joke — on the other hand, the Arles museum is dreadful and a joke, and fit to be in Tarascon — there's also a museum of antiquities, they're genuine." Somewhat less derogatory, the 1891 edition of a

Baedeker Verlag Karl Baedeker, founded by Karl Baedeker on July 1, 1827, is a German publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides. The guides, often referred to simply as " Baedekers" (a term sometimes used to refer to similar works fro ...

Guide covering southern France read: "In the former ''Grand-Prieuré'' is the ''Musée Réattu'', a small picture gallery (many copies)." In 1901, the museum had six exhibition rooms. In the 1950s, at the time of the renovations of the building, modern art began entering the collections. Initiated by Lucien Clergue and Jean-Maurice Rouquette in 1965, the foundation of the department of photography was the first of its kind in an arts museum in France. In 1971, Pablo Picasso donated 57 of his recent drawings to the Musée Réattu.

Sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

began entering the collection in 2006. In 2008, an exhibition of the works of French fashion designer Christian Lacroix has attracted 120,000 visitors. The exhibition "Revoir Réattu" opened in November 2013.

Collections

The museum owns 800 paintings and drawings by Jacques Réattu. Twelve exhibition rooms are dedicated to his own works, his collections (mainly 17th century paintings), as well as works by friends, relatives and collaborators, like ''The Couturiers workshop'' painted by his uncle Antoine Raspal in the 1780s. Three rooms are dedicated to Picasso and one room to photography.Arles Tourism Office
Museums
The collections also include contemporary sculptures by César, Richier, Bourdelle, Zadkine and modern paintings by Dufy, Vlaminck and Prassinos, among others. The collection of photographs comprised over 4,000 works in 2001. Initial gifts by photographers including

Richard Avedon Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He worked for ''Harper's Bazaar'', ''Vogue'' and ''Elle'' specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theater and danc ...

Cecil Beaton Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the t ...

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to eac ...

Peter Beard Peter Hill Beard (January 22, 1938 – March 31 / April 19, 2020) was an American artist, photographer, diarist, and writer who lived and worked in New York City, Montauk and Kenya. His photographs of Africa, African animals and the journ ...

, Werner Bischof,

Izis Israëlis Bidermanas (17 January 1911 – 16 May 1980 in Paris), who worked under the name of Izis, was a Lithuanian-Jewish photographer who worked in France and is best known for his photographs of French circuses and of Paris. Biography Born i ...

, William Klein and

Jean Dieuzaide Jean Dieuzaide (20 June 1921 – 18 September 2003) was a French photographer. Early life and education Dieuzaide was born on 20 June 1921 in Grenade, Haute-Garonne, and at 13 was given a cardboard Coronet 6 x 9 camera. He attended secondary s ...

, as well as by collectors, were followed from 1970 onwards by photographs donated by the artists attending the Rencontres d'Arles.

References

External links